


Different, Somehow

by unoriginal_liz



Category: What Katy Did At School
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-27
Updated: 2003-12-27
Packaged: 2017-12-21 23:22:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/906154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unoriginal_liz/pseuds/unoriginal_liz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Why Clover Carr, you heartless wretch!" Rose cried.  "I declare, I think I shall take my misery elsewhere - somewhere it will be appreciated, and treated with the respect it deserves!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Different, Somehow

**Author's Note:**

> Far less pointless than many things I have written!

Burnet is different somehow, after the year at Hillsover. Smaller, and dustier, and threadbare, with its worn-out people chanting worn-out phrases. Katy shakes her head and laughs, ruefully. "The price of knowledge, I suppose," she says.

Except that Katy never says that, because Katy never seems to notice the wide featureless sky, the headachy heat, the snail-slowness between morning and evening. It is only Clover who sees how shabby and secondhand home has become.

Home had been all they had wanted at Hillsover, she and Katy both, and now that they _are_ at home, there is something terrifying to Clover in her dissatisfaction. It is ridiculous to feel unhappy now that they have what they wanted, Clover decides, and she firmly settles herself to darning and housework and looking after the children.

It is summer when they return. Home had left her unprepared for the cold of Hillsover, and likewise, a year at Hillsover has turned the familiar Burnet summer into an unfamiliar irritation. The heat makes her head ache faintly, just enough to be felt, and leaves her temples damp. At night, she finds it hard to sleep, because breathing the stale air (breathed in first by every person in Burnet, she is certain) makes her feel as though she is suffocating.

The time crawls by, heat-dazed, and mornings seem to pass breathlessly, the sun striking the ground hard and making the homely kitchen painfully bright. Outside, the heat leaves one longing to be inside, and inside, in the close stillness of the house, one forgets just how hot it is outdoors.

Sensitive Elsie doesn't seem to feel it, saying only, thankfully, "At least it isn't Mrs Worrett's!" And Katy goes for long walks, dust swirling about her feet, while Clover wilts inside.

*****

Hands and feet were the worst affected by the cold. Clover's feet were swelled with chilblains, rubbed raw from her boots. Every night Katy patted Debby's miracle cream on them to ease the pain.

"Poor dear," Katy said sympathetically. Katy was like a tree branch, sturdy and impervious to the weather, while Clover shrivelled up inside herself, dull with cold.

Her hands were worse, fingers curled up like leaves. It hurt to straighten them, and they too were covered in chilblains, puffy and red. She hated to look at them.

Sometimes Rose Red pulled Clover's hands together and blew into them. Warm air tingled against her chilled fingertips, and Rose's eyes smiled at her.

*****

The days toil on. "There's so much to be done," Katy sighs, looking out the window. Clover agrees - there is certainly work to be done, but it amazes her how many spare minutes are crammed into the day.

There are visits, of course. The good people of Burnet must give the Carr girls a proper welcome home (and see, besides, what airs and graces that fancy far-away school has given them). Mrs Worrett calls, and Mrs Knight, and both pronounce them, "Not a mite different, not a mite!", Mrs Worrett with heavy satisfaction, Mrs Knight with seeming disappointment and secret glee.

Cecy calls frequently, and the summer is filled with surprising 'welcome homes' from Katy's friends. Debby nearly trips over a basket of apples laid in front of the back door. Phil pronounces, with the wisdom of little boys, that they are from Mr Worth's orchard.

"What are you going to do, Katy?" Elsie asks, wide-eyed. Mr Worth's unsociable nature and fierce temper are well known.

"I'll have to go and thank him, of course," Katy says firmly. "He shall hate it, I know, but it was sweet of him. Poor man, his kindness does get the better of him!"

Another day Johnny runs into the kitchen, breathlessly calling for Katy. Mrs Stanley is waiting at the gate. She doesn't come inside, though, as Elsie says, "All that black must be awful hot." And when Katy comes back into the kitchen, she is a little tearstained, and only says, "Poor Mrs Stanley, poor _dear_ Mrs Stanley."

Dorry goes out one day, and when he comes back he is carrying two small dolls, made out of straw. "Pressed into my hand by two little girls," he says, "Who whispered, 'For Miss Carr,' and scuttled off directly." He hands them to Katy, who laughs delightedly.

Katy has always collected people, like others collect pattern plates. Katy has always been the one who made friends.

*****

When Rose Red opened the door, with a flamboyant sigh and a damp face, Clover couldn't help but smile. She bent her face back to her book though, while Rose Red hovered by her head and sighed again. She took no notice, and Rose sniffed - and waited, then, growing impatient, sniffed again. Clover bit her lip and said, as calmly as possible, "Do you need the loan of a handkerchief, Rose?"

It was impossible not to look up, to see how this was taken, and equally, it was impossible not to laugh at the expression of indignation on Rose's tearstained face.

"Why Clover Carr, you heartless wretch!" she cried. "I declare, I think I shall take my misery elsewhere - somewhere it will be appreciated, and treated with the respect it deserves!"

And with that, she turned as if to make for the door, but she made no complaint when Clover caught on to her skirt, protesting, and she tumbled onto the bed easily enough.

"What have you done now?" Clover inquired, settling herself.

"What have _I_ done?" Rose repeated. "Why, nothing, and I think it very unkind of you to suggest otherwise."

"Then what is the matter?" Clover asked. In answer, Rose laid her head in Clover's lap and wailed. "I'm simply miserable. I've been crying hard for at least the last half hour. I don't think anybody else has ever been so miserable as me - no, not even that girl in the book you're reading."

"And are you really as miserable as all that?" Clover asked mildly.

Rose looked up at her. "Of course!" she said indignantly. Then, as a small smile curled her lips, she amended it to, "Well...I was at first."

"I thought so," Clover said, with some satisfaction. "Come now, tell me what there was to be miserable about."

"All right," Rose said, sitting up, and waving a warning finger, "Only, Clover, it is horribly vexing, so you must promise not to make a joke of it - or at least," smile and dimple returning, "Not until _I_ do."

"I promise," Clover said, as solemnly as she could.

"Good girl. Now, well...I found this in my hood today," and Rose thrust a small square of paper at Clover, who took it obligingly, then frowned. Thick black scribbles obscured the original message, and she looked at Rose inquiringly.

"I simply _had_ to scribble it out, dear. It was an insult to decency, and a special insult to _me_ ," Rose said. "You should have seen the indignities I visited upon it in the privacy of my room."

"What was it?" Clover asked, mystified.

"Oh," Rose said, and laughed a little. "You know Teddy Denham? Sometimes he tags along with Berry Searles' set? That puppy sent me a love note."

"Oh Rose - he didn't!" Clover gasped.

Rose nodded grimly. "He did. Full of the most conceited, impolite, impertinent nonsense. And he thought I'd be flattered! Oh, Clovy, I was fit to tear my hair out with vexation - that dreadful...oh, it makes my blood boil to think of him!"

Clover murmured sympathetically, and Rose turned beseeching eyes on her. "Oh, Clover, I know I'm nowhere near as good as you and Katy - though I don't think anybody else _could_ be as good as Katy, so it's no use trying - but...but, am I really so bad? I've never meant to flirt, truly I haven't, but - tell me honestly, Clover, do. Am I a dreadful flirt, in spite of myself?"

Clover thought of Rose Red's merry eyes, that winked secret messages, and her smile that promised mischief, and her daring way of saying things, that was like no-one Clover had ever known.

"No," Clover said firmly. "Of course you're not, you dear goose."

Rose sighed in relief. "Well, that is a burden lifted off my chest - truly, I had begun to paint myself in the most dreadful light. It is a tremendous relief to lay all the blame at Teddy Denham's door." And she sighed in satisfaction.

"Well, he certainly isn't a gentleman," Clover said decidedly, employing the worst insult she could think of. She frowned at the note. "Now Rose, let me tear this thing up, and throw it away, for that's all it's fit for. And you mustn't worry one bit about it any longer."

Rose was all sunshine and smiles again, and she threw her arms about Clover. "You dear, sweet thing. You're the best sort of friend to have, truly. I feel miles better now, darling," and she kissed Clover, a Rose Red kiss - sweet and short and teasing.

*****

Summer inches along painfully slow, and Rose Red sends letters that are so like her Clover could cry.

_Sylvia has broken three hearts already - the witch - but you mustn't waste any time feeling sorry for them, for I've taken the poor boys in hand, and I'm bullying them back to health._

Clover reads and re-reads these letters, while all around her people say what she expects them to say, and she answers them back in the same way.

She can look into the years ahead, steady-eyed. Time will pass like this, with visits from neighbors, with stockings to be darned, and rooms to be dusted. And in a few years, she will inch out slowly into Burnet society, and then...she doesn't know. She can't imagine anything interesting happening ever again.

In the evenings she watches the sunset scorch the sky orange and pink, and when Katy says, "Isn't it beautiful?" she says, "Yes."

Dorry once told her that the earth is moving all the time, but Clover doesn't feel it. Burnet must be different somehow, she decides.


End file.
